


Afterwords . . .

by mresundance



Category: Bandom, Real Person Fiction, The Libertines
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mresundance/pseuds/mresundance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things Pete and Carl just don't talk about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterwords . . .

**The Night Before**

It was the best of times, really, because they had gotten a house together, dubbed Delaney Mansions for all it's square footage with odd side doors and winding corridors that could lead anywhere, and completely thrown it even more upside down in a housewarming party that would be spoken of for years to come. Pete had shown up midway, fucked out of his head from speed, in a wig, make-up, and someone's stolen skirt, and had begun chatting people up at amazing speeds in a preposterous imitation of a posh accent. Carl had watched in the corner, sweaty and dizzy from his own speed and beer binge, feeling a pinch of jealously – right between his shoulders.

3.40 am found the two new houseowners and old mates shambling about in what might have been the living room, they couldn't tell, they kept laughing and bumbling over emptied beer cans, wadded wraps scattered on the floor, a few mementos left by guests, from shoes to gloves to lipstick. Pete smeared it garishly all over his face as Carl hooted as if Pete had just invented the funniest joke since people had been telling jokes. Pete was like that to Carl, even sans drugs, and Pete loved the audience he had in Carl, who never seemed to get bored with him, or think him too strange when he babbled on about utter bollocks, which was his favorite past-time next to Trying to Be More English than the Queen's Own Mother.

Pete puckered his lips at Carl and Carl giggled.

"Peter!" Carl hiccoughed, dark hair falling in his blue eyes with pupils the size of saucers. He clung to Pete, pulled him into his arms.

"Pete, I fuckin' want to make love to you," Carl declared, and then giggled some more.

Pete showed he agreed by kissing Carl, more on the cheek than the lips, and smearing lipstick all over his chin. Carl stopped giggling and grabbed Pete's hair and they tumbled to the floor. The world was a blur of hearts banging against their eardrums, of sweaty skin and shaking hands grappling with each other.

**The Morning After**

Carl blinked. Runny gold and grey light came through the thick, musty curtains and from under the cracks of doors. He rubbed his eyes, frowning. He coughed, stretched, noticing how he felt like he'd been run over by a couple dozen rhinos. Pete was curled up against his chest, sleeping. Carl looked bemusedly at him, his soft, boyish face, the way his dark curls fell in his eyes. Carl stroked his cheek.

Pete muttered and stirred. Carl noticed everything else and froze.

"Carl?" Pete murmured, rubbing his eyes. Carl had quite a look on his face, like an animal in headlights. Pete looked around. "You're – I'm – why are we . . ." Pete struggled. This was a little more weirdness than even he was usually used to. He and Carl were both naked and curled up in the middle of their new living room, which looked more or less like it'd been ransacked only half a dozen times or so. "My trousers," Peter muttered, forgetting he hadn't been wearing trousers when Carl had helped him out of his clothes. He looked at Carl again, who still looked like something unwelcome had crawled up his arse. Pete wondered about this briefly and then the little bits fell into place like a couple bricks that fell on both their heads. They winced together and Pete made a little noise in the back his throat while his mouth formed an "O". Carl didn't know if he wanted to think about where and when else he'd last seen Pete's lips like that, and shoved Pete from him. They untangled and avoided looking at each other as they sought out their clothes and managed to get somewhat dressed, Carl in jeans and Pete with the skirt.

"So," Carl managed. He cleared his throat and tired to untangle his hair, wincing at what could have turned it into the snarl it was.

Pete busied himself licking his palms and fiddling with his own equally snarled hair, though that was actually a normal state for Pete's hair.

This wasn't weird. Sleeping with your mate. The lad you had admired and laughed with and come to utterly adore over the past two years. Who you could sing with and dance with and had mostly the same taste in poetry and music, and you bickered with about what pair of socks to wear to certain functions, or just about anything really, but it was a loving kind of spite. The kind of spite that made you feel silly and dizzy more than angry.

"Uhm. . ." said Pete. "I dunno."

"Well I don't either," Carl said distantly, and bent over to pick up his underpants. He winced again, this time at the soreness in a not uncertain part of the ass. He groaned.

Pete looked at him, bent over, and blushed to his eartips.

"Let's just," Carl looked around for something that would keep him from looking at Pete and Pete pretended the ceiling was really interesting. "Let's just – not talk about it. I think, uhm. Yeah. We should."

"Forget the whole thing," Pete exhaled.

"Yeah."

"Never happened."

"Right."

"Wipe the slate clean."

"Yes."

"Start afresh."

"Uhm-hm."

"Begin anew as if nothing had happened."

"Nothing did."

"Of course."

"Right."

"Good."

**A Fortnight After**

The Agreement to Not Talk About It lasted a few painful weeks in which they shuffled about their new home trying not to eye each other too much or seem to interested in each other. Pete kept on with his usual mad rambling about English comedians or chips or how fucking stupid the Tories were. Carl pretended to ignore him by pretending to nod off or read a book or the newspaper. He could never not listen to Pete though. It was like trying not to breathe as far as he was concerned. Pete poured honeyed potions and wild visions of Albion in people's ears as they slept, and they woke up thinking England the grandest pile of shit that ever was and that one could throw oneself into eternity and that sheer madness was maybe the cure for all humanity's ills, etc. Things of this nature.

They argued about the furniture arrangements (Pete wanted the dodgy couch in the living room, Carl though it might look better in that other room that they called the duck room due to the wallpaper) and between them broke a lamp and a chair. Then on a Sunday, Carl took down the curtains in the living room, the ones that would be lush and wine red if they weren't so coated in dust and colonized by moths. He was going to burn them, or throw them out at the least. Pete liked them – they were nice in a manky way – and you shouldn't just chuck something because it's a bit dingy, eh? Pete tried to yank the curtains from Carl. They ripped. Pete called Carl a bint, Carl called Pete a cunt and stomped on the curtains, which sent up a cloud of moths and dust. Pete swung at Carl, Carl dodged and they tripped over each other in the curtains, huffing and puffing and finally colliding. Carl threw Pete on his back. Pete retaliated by sticking his hand down Carl's pants and sucking at Carl's neck.

Carl, cooked noodle limp and too tipsy suddenly to remember however he'd ended up spread eagled in a pile of disgusting curtains, trousers and pants at his ankles, squeaked in surprise as Pete went down on him. Moths fluttered about in the air and he felt sheepish with such a bug-eyed audience.

Afterwards, they agreed not to mention it. This absolutely wouldn't happen again, really. Even if they were both glowing and flushed and kept patting each other reassuringly on the shoulder.

**About 2 Months After**

Carl had come home from work tired, and discovered that Pete had not only failed to take out the trash again, but was trying to fry chips in the kitchen. Trying, as evidenced by the smoke billowing from the kitchen, Pete squealing and babbling and smashing things. If there had been a functioning fire alarm in Delaney Mansions, it would have been screaming.

"Peter Doherty!" Carl cried in exasperation and kicked a neglected bag of rubbish in the hall. It rattled at him.

While walking down to Bernie's Fish'n'Chips after throwing Pete's burnt mess into another full bag of rubbish, Pete tried to explain the rubbish. Carl listened, but ground his teeth and balled his fists in his jacket as he imagined 101 Amazing Ways to Deck the Doherty.

"Well, there was some stuff I wanted to look at and fiddle with Carl, you know how I am. How can you throw away some of that rubbish anyways, 's not really rubbish, could be some sort of art, you know . . ."

Carl rolled his eyes. Pete babbled on. He was mostly just happy Carl was home, because he'd had a day off and spent it being bored and trying to resist the urge to set things afire, blow money on some funny new drugs, and not bounce all over the furniture, because Carl had said it might break something, and he'd have a fit if he found out. It was almost funny when he had a fit too, Pete whistled and skipped along.

They passed a tattered Union Jack hung from a pub. It flapped mournfully in the twilight. Pete started whistling "God Save the Queen" and whistled it all the way into Bernie's, hummed it on and on as they waited in the eternally long queue. Carl kept glowering at him and was sure by the end of this all his molars would be naught but powder. Pete grabbed and held Carl's hand and then winked at an old lady who gave them a scandalized look. Carl yanked his hand back.

"Stop it," he grumbled. He ordered their chips and waited.

He tucked the wad of grease and cooked potato wrapped in newspaper under his arm as they went out. Pete twittered and said: "The Queen's a skanky old hag anyways."

Carl let out a yell that was more like a roar, dropped the chips, and launched himself at Pete. He'd had enough and no-one but no-one insulted the Queen on his watch, even Peter Doherty, who was really Irish anyway. Pete yelped and ran, Carl at his heels. They ran all the way back to Delaney Mansions, nearly plowing over a woman and her baby carriage, and a bloke and his little dog. Pete made it first, and instead of taking a logical route that would involve shooting through a door and locking it behind him, latched himself to some lead pipes and climbed up to a window ledge. Carl, gasping below, looked around for a ladder, because he couldn't be arsed to climb that.

He shook his fists at Pete. Pete grinned and bobbed and wriggled about, singing some rubbish tune he made up on the spot.

"Please! Please! Peter!" Carl shook his head and cursed when he realized he'd dropped the chips. Pete opened the window and slid in, snickering.

Carl came back with a fresh batch of chips and slightly less annoyed. Pete was curled on the couch in front of the telly watching the BBC world news and making disgusted noises at everything wrong with the world, but especially Old Blighty.

"Fuck the Tories," Pete said. Carl sighed and, not knowing what else to do with him, kissed Pete and helped him out of his shirt and trousers. It certainly shut him up, in a way, because he was too busy crooning and groaning to say anything else, and, pinned under Carl, couldn't get up to any mischief. Well –

"Oh," Carl said. "I didn't know a person could do that . . ."

Pete laughed.

They still agreed not to mention it, as they had previous times. But this time, it was agreed upon as they huddled together under a blanket on the couch, holding each other, without words.

"Fuck the Tories," Pete said again.

**5ish Months After**

Pete had reasoned it was good for the environment too.

"Sharing showers saves water," he'd quipped.

Not to mention the fact that one hot shower a day was all Delaney Mansions could manage to spit out. Beyond that, the water turned ice cold and stayed that way for at least 24 hours. Carl had grumbled about it and Pete had said they should share. Carl had eyed him in a way that was meant to say "You aren't starting trouble are you?", and Pete had raised his eyebrows in a manner that said: "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Carl nearly noted that Pete had never really bothered about the environment much before, but he was preoccupied with the finger he had in Pete's ass and how it was making him sweat and shudder.

"You like?" Carl whispered into his ear, that smoky voice with an edge of velvet that drove Pete mad. Pete scrabbled against the moldy shower tiles, then whiplashed back against Carl, clawing at him and nipping for his collarbone. Carl pushed another finger in and began to stroke Pete with his other hand. Pete's eyes rolled back in his sockets and he looked absolutely ridiculous, but in a radiant way.

"Ahmmm," Pete gargled.

Drying each other off later, Carl said: "Not going to talk about this, then?"

"Nah," Pete rubbed water off Carl's ass. "Just like we're not talkin' about last night, or the day before, or the day before sort of thing."

"Not doin' this again."

"Oh no," Pete said. "'Course not. Wouldn't dream of it, Mr. Barat."

Carl shoved him and they exchanged stupid smiles.

**Almost 9 Months After**

They were in the duck room, screaming at 4 in the morning because Carl had finally got home from the pub. Pete saw and smelled her all over Carl from kilometers away, before Carl even got through the door: the swagger in Carl's step, the perfume cloud that hovered all over him.

"You cunt!" Pete snapped.

"What?" Carl blinked.

"You 'eard me," Pete tromped off, not knowing why he was reacting like this, but he wanted to smash something or throw a brick through an evil government building's window, chuck a bottle at a bobby, something. Instead he turned his back to Carl and slammed a door on him, the nearest one he could get himself through, which, in Delaney Mansions, could either lead to the kitchen, or be a roundabout way to the cellar through the attic. He swore to himself when he bumped into a wall and realized it was a bloody broom closet.

"Pete –" Carl sighed from the other sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Carl stared at the door and tired to line up the words in his head that he thought might make it open.

Pete, you're being a bloody arsehat. So I was with a girl tonight, we had a good time, I thought about you a disturbing amount, mostly how she wasn't much compared to you, honestly, but that might be bias on my part, as I seem to have fallen in love with you but I can't say that, that would be stupid and silly and we're not really like that, are we? I don't know. But really, you're over-reacting. Really.

Carl hissed and shook his head.

Pete, don't be a silly sod. It's just a girl. Come out.

Peter Doherty, get your scrawny pasty English arse out here –

Too motherly, Carl shuddered.

He thought some more and chewed on his thumbnail.

On the other side again, Pete, was busy trying to discover the right words to sound furious and shrill with, but was failing and all he could come up with was that he really loved Carl and thought it was a stupid thing to go chasing random girls at this point, he could've at least left notice, and it was even stupider he had stayed up all night waiting for Carl.

He decided to scream. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

And to Carl, it seemed like the reasonable thing to force the door, slam into Pete, and end up on in an almost too familiar tumble on the floor, shouting, growling, biting, kissing, fucking, arguing.

"I hate you!" Pete clawed the floor and groaned as Carl pounded him.

"I hate you more!" Carl replied, eyes crossed as Pete did that thing that involved squeezing his muscles and made the whole world contract blissfully.

"I HATE YOU MORE THAN I HATE MARGARET THATCHER!"

"I HATE YOU MORE THAN I HATED YOU LAST TIME!"

"FUCK OFF!"

"I AM!"

"KEEP FUCKING OFF THEN!"

Wide eyed and dazed, floating on some cloud of golden heat and livid sex smells that must exist also in Arcadia, heaving atop one another, Carl frowned as Pete pulled sticky dark curls out of his eyes.

"Not goin' to . . ." Carl murmured, holding Pete's face, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

"Nuh," said Pete, kissing him softly.

**Very Nearly a Year After**

Back in the living room, amongst a sprawl of sheet music, beer cans, records, their guitars, bent towards each other over a song.

"I don't think that key's the right one," Carl said. Pete shrugged and ignored him, kept playing what he knew was the right series of chords anyways.

"No, it should be like this," Carl played.

"D minor? Not D fucking minor," Pete said. "You say that every time. 'S not right."

"It is and you know it," Carl put his guitar down and had that glint in his eye that said, Try Me. I dare you. Pete raised his brow, his way of putting up his fists. But then without warning he jumped Carl, flipped him on his stomach, and got into his trousers.

"That's not fair," Carl protested weakly. "Cheater. You're supposed to warn me first."

Pete laughed. He ran his fingers through Carl's hair and caressed his shoulders, laying kisses down his spine as he began to sing.

"Did you see the stylish kids in the riot?  
Shoveled up like muck, set the night on fire,  
wombles bleed, truncheons and shields  
you know I cherish you, my love," the last lines dripping into Carl's ear, a whisper, as he slid his body against Carl's.

"'S not right, I tell you," Carl said to the floor, shivering under Pete. "Another key –"

Pete smirked and wiggled his tongue theatrically before bumming Carl with the same tongue. Carl gagged and managed to hum what he thought the tune should be. Pete replied by humming how he _knew_ the song sounded.

"Ah, ah, ah," Carl piped, voice pinching higher each time. Pete hummed louder and began to stroke Carl. Carl arched back into him.

"Yesyes –"

Pete whipped his face out of Carl's ass, but kept stroking.

"HA!"

"NO!" Carl slammed his fist into the floor. "Not that key! No! Yes! Oh!" he gulped as Pete returned his tongue and resumed humming.

Pete finished him off and they sat smoking, naked, and flushed.

"Alright," Carl conceded.

"Ta," Pete smirked.

"An' it's not 'cos you got me off to it," Carl said.

"Uhm-hmm," Pete blew a smug stream of smoke. Egotistical bastard Carl thought, his heart feeling like a fist was squeezing it. Oh, but how I love him. And always will.

They smoked some more and watched each other. Pete knew he would never meet anyone as beautiful as Carl, and it wasn't just his impeccable skin and dark hair. It was the torchlight in the other's eyes that reflected him back his own. He could bear fire with Pete. And how I love him, Pete knew with certainty hard and clear as he knew about Arcadia. And always will.

"Not going to speak of this, then?" Pete gave a wry smile, throwing away the stub of his fag, and leaned into Carl's arms.

"I don't think so," Carl flicked away his fag and ran his fingers through Pete's hair, stroked his side, felt the bumps of his spine. "Rather unnecessary at this point, innit?"

"Might be. A bit," Pete said, kissing Carl. Both their eyes were wide open as they faced each other. It was a moment before they broke apart.

Carl huffed.

"Well, that's settled then."

Pete agreed.

"Now, about the chord for that other song we're lookin' at," Carl said.

"Not fucking D minor Carl."

"Maybe not, but something closer to C-"

"No."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really."

"Well have to see about that, then."

"We just might."

_Fin_

\-------------------------  
By the by, I have no idea what key "Time for Heroes" is in, and I was too lazy to check. So. I just like D minor myself.  
\-------------------------


End file.
